David WhishWilson
Three new crime novels by Emma Viskic, Christian White, and Garry Disher
These are exciting times when the new normal for Australian crime fiction is strong domestic interest and sales, but also international attention in the form of Australian-only panels at overseas writers’ festivals, plus regular nominations and awards in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Whether this is a literary fad or sustainable in the long term – with Australian crime fiction becoming a recognisable ‘brand’ in the manner of Scandi-noir or Tartan-noir – will depend largely upon the sustained quality of the novels produced here.
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The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past; it keeps coming back as different novels, and writers do things differently there. Nazi Germany remains history’s prime hothouse from which to procure blooms for fiction’s bouquet. All those darkly perfumed spikes – drama and tragedy intrinsic, memory within recall.
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For the most part, the burgeoning 1980s nostalgia industry in Australia tends to overlook the fact that back then the states seemed to be engaged in a kind of Sheffield Shield ...
... (read more)News from the Editor's Desk - August 2016
Tuesday, 26 July 2016News from the the Editor's Desk in the August issue of Australian Book Review.
... (read more)News from the Editor's Desk - September 2016
Tuesday, 26 July 2016News from the the Editor's Desk in the September issue of Australian Book Review.
... (read more)David Whish-Wilson reviews 'Coming Rain' by Stephen Daisley
For this reviewer, it’s been a long five years since the publication of Stephen Daisley’s Traitor (2010). The rightly acclaimed and award-winning début novel wrote of the terrors of war, and the life on the land of one irreparably damaged New Zealand soldier, David. As an exploration of the damage done to an ordinary and unappreciated man, the prose was ...
David Whish-Wilson reviews 'To Name Those Lost' by Rohan Wilson
Rohan Wilson’s To Name Those Lost is a ferocious and brilliant sequel to his The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award-winning début, The Roving Party (2011), which charted the murderous exploits of John Batman and his crew of cutthroats sent out on a punitive ...
David Whish-Wilson reviews Tony Birch’s new collection of twelve short stories which display his characteristic humour, laconicism and charm.
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Stephen Orr’s previous novel, Time’s Long Ruin (2010), which was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and long-listed for the Miles Franklin, explored the repercussions within a quiet Adelaide community of the disappearance of three of its most vulnerable members, closely related to the disappearance and presumed murder of the Beaumont child ...